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AUGUST 31, 2023
On the Prospect website
* David Dayen finds a chaotic start to preparations for the resumption
of student loan payments
<[link removed]>
* Jonathan Levy, a former teammate of Ron DeSantis on the Yale baseball
team
<[link removed]>,
reviews the Florida governor's campaign book
* Gabrielle Gurley explores the backlash to London's fees on
high-emissions vehicles
<[link removed]>
* Marcus Baram on the Biden administration's new, more generous
overtime rules
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Dayen on TAP
Biden Takes First Step Toward Making Marijuana 'A Little Less
Illegal'
The Health and Human Services Department recommends loosening federal
restrictions on cannabis.
We're now in Day 953 of the Biden presidency, but the Day One Agenda
is still in process. As our friends at Capital & Main
<[link removed]>
reported, the Department of Labor proposed new rules that will set the
threshold for those salaried workers eligible for overtime at $55,000
and under, up from $35,568. And yesterday, the Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) recommended a rescheduling of marijuana
<[link removed]>
under the Controlled Substances Act, from Schedule I to Schedule III.
Schedule I drugs are classified as the most dangerous, with no medicinal
value and high potential for abuse. That currently puts marijuana in the
company of LSD and heroin. Schedule III drugs
<[link removed]> are in the middle of the
five classifications, with accepted medical use and "moderate to low
abuse potential." Tylenol with codeine, anabolic steroids, and ketamine
are Schedule III drugs. In general, this class of drugs requires a
prescription.
If marijuana were rescheduled to Schedule III, it would not make the
current spate of state-level recreational and medicinal programs legal
under federal law. It would make them, as law firm McGlinchey Stafford
puts it
<[link removed]>,
"a little less illegal." Federal penalties for the use and sale of
Schedule III drugs are much lower, for example. (President Biden has
already pardoned thousands of people
<[link removed]>
convicted of federal crimes for simple marijuana possession.) And
cannabis research and development could be undertaken much more easily;
it is nearly impossible to do research with human subjects under
Schedule I because of restrictive protocols.
Perhaps the biggest impact would be the tax treatment of
marijuana-related businesses. No longer would they fall under Section
280E of the tax code, which treats these businesses as drug traffickers
and prohibits them from standard business deductions. This will not only
make it cheaper to run a cannabis business, it will likely boost
lending, given the signal that the government will be more lenient with
these kinds of enterprises. Those loans will likely be more affordable
as well, as more options become available. That's good news for an
industry that is always seemingly teetering on collapse
<[link removed]>,
particularly on the West Coast.
Rescheduling would not legalize banking for cannabis businesses, but it
could also give new life to the SAFE Banking Act
<[link removed]>, which Congress has
tried to pass for a decade without success. There are 42 Senate sponsors
<[link removed]>
(including eight Republicans) for the bill, which has repeatedly passed
the House.
None of this, of course, will happen overnight. The HHS recommendation,
which was asked for by the president, went to the Drug Enforcement
Administration, a division of the Justice Department, which now must
conduct its own review. The DEA has the authority to actually reschedule
the drug, under the auspices of the attorney general. Given that Biden
initiated the review, I think there's a strong expectation that this
rescheduling will take effect sometime next year.
But this is not descheduling, which would make marijuana effectively
legal
<[link removed]>.
America would still consider cannabis an illegal drug under this plan,
with the attendant risks of arrest for sales and usage. Overall, the
effects on individual consumers would be relatively minor, although if
it allows more businesses to thrive, that would perhaps make purchasing
pot easier and safer.
During the presidential campaign, Biden said he would only reschedule
cannabis to Schedule II. So this is progress, but it's rather minimal,
and politically it won't move the needle much. In a statement, Cat
Packer, director of drug markets and legal regulation at the Drug Policy
Alliance, said: "While this announcement has significant symbolic value,
a move to Schedule III would do little to address the most serious harms
impacting communities that have been disproportionately targeted by
marijuana criminalization."
The best you can say about this first step is that it recognizes the
historic wrong of classifying marijuana as an ultra-dangerous drug. But
there's a long way to go to fully remedy that wrong.
~ DAVID DAYEN
Follow David Dayen on Twitter <[link removed]>
or Bluesky Social <[link removed]>
[link removed]
Student Borrowers Report Chaos and Confusion as Repayment Looms
<[link removed]>
Despite promises that new repayment plans would make monthly payments
lower, many borrowers report they are higher. BY DAVID DAYEN
Biden Administration Seeks to Expand Overtime Pay to Millions of U.S.
Workers
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If you earn less than $55,000 a year and work more than 40 hours a week,
you could be eligible for time and a half. BY MARCUS BARAM
In London, ULEZ Is a Dirty Word
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A climate backlash over the expansion of emission fees on older vehicles
simmers in Britain. BY GABRIELLE GURLEY
Clinton's Backwash
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To make sense of Ron DeSantis, who trolls a liberal elite that has not
faced its own failures, a former teammate reflects on their time playing
baseball at Yale in the 1990s. BY JONATHAN LEVY
[link removed]
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